Denis O'Donovan (Fianna Fail)

In one sense the Minister of State has agreed to accept the amendment tabled by Senator Donohoe. I will not dilly dally too long on this issue. I am glad Senator Donohoe was successful in respect of inserting the right to consult in this process.

On 8 January we celebrated the commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the Betelgeuse disaster at Whiddy Island. I will not go into the history of it. In all that time and through successive Governments, some of which I was a member of, commitments were given to developments in Bantry and they were blatantly ignored up to this day. I will make this point briefly. I refer to a question in the Dáil tabled by Deputy Joe Walsh on 27 February 1986. He asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce whether he would specify the job content in the recently announced financial aid package for Bantry, County Cork, and whether he would make a statement on the matter. The reply from the then Minister for Industry and Commerce, Mr. Noonan, Limerick East, states:

In so far as my Department is concerned, the special development package for west Cork-Bantry announced by the Taoiseach [the then Taoiseach was Garret FitzGerald] on 7 February includes the construction of an enterprise centre in Bantry and the provision of equity funding for selected viable projects in the area at a total estimated cost of £1.5 million.

It is not possible at this stage to quantify the job content of these proposals but employment will arise through the construction for the enterprise centre and the enhanced prospects for industrial development in the area arising from the measures in the package.

I am absolutely ashamed, in the memory of those who died in Whiddy, at that reply. There was a package of £8 million, much of which was to be given to west Cork. Not one farthing was spent on the inner harbour at Bantry. Outside Whiddy, we have the ghastly, mangled steel structure of the jetty that was blown up. Gulf Oil Corporation sold out and as a result of this, the package was announced.

I am being asked to accept that a statutory process of consultation into the future will be honoured. We have been kicked in the teeth and in the backside for years. At the time, there were two issues and I will not deviate. As a young trainee lawyer at the time, I was involved in the Whiddy tribunal which was a tribunal worthy of the name. It was cost effective and to the point. The extension of the pier at Bantry and the dredging of the inner harbour were critical and have been ignored since then. Subsequently, the Government sold the facilities at Whiddy and Whitegate to Conoco Phillips. A substantial sum of money changed hands. Many people do not realise that the national oil reserve is stored at Whiddy Island.

I used to play poker in my student days. If one was foolish enough, one would bet on the blind. We are being asked to bet on the blind by allowing this measure that proposes to abolish the Bantry Bay Harbour Commissioners and amalgamate the harbour with Cork. Having been neglected for 30 years, and I personally having been refused consultation in recent months despite the board having demanded it, we apparently must have faith in statutory inclusion that there will be consultation in future. I cannot have faith in that proposal, with all due respect.

I was talking to a fish farmer this morning and asked him for his views on this. I have not seen him for a long time because he is often away at sea and out on boats. He said there was a spring tide this morning and that they could not shift the barge or mussel raft from the head of the pier because the tide was out. There is almost 3 m of silt and mud, which is taller than me, to be got rid of. That has been an issue for 30 years. I would like a clear guarantee from the Minister of State that the issues that have haunted the development of Bantry and our pier, some of which were referred to in the Costello report, would be addressed unequivocally and with certainty. I know in my heart of hearts, and I think Senator McCarthy knows, that if the Port of Cork Company takes us over, which will happen some day, it has commercial expertise and it will run Whiddy well, run the quarries and collect money, but it will decide that the dredging of the inner harbour, the pier extension, and the mussel and tourism related industries are not within its remit. I am not going to bet on the blind and in this regard I have to accede because at Senator Donohoe's request, the Minister of State has kindly said he will reconsider and is prepared to accept the amendment, by and large. However, I cannot allow this to divert me from my proposal in my amendments to section 18. This is a case of betting on the blind and it is shameful.

I remember when Whiddy was opened because we got a day off school when Jack Lynch was Taoiseach. There was huge fanfare in Bantry and there were many hopes and visions. Our hopes have been dashed on the rocks too often. Even commitments made on 14 June 2000 by the then Minister, Deputy Frank Fahey, announced £1.5 million for an extension to the pier which equated roughly to €1.9 million. This fell by the wayside. I refer to five or six Government commitments from different Governments of different make-up, including the coalition Government of the 1980s and several Governments in which my own party was involved. The people in Bantry do not have faith in blind betting. I have represented the area for the past 25 years and I want us to continue on our own because the promised consultation process is too little too late and is a damp squib.